How do you present a football field to a board, and how do you handle methods that disagree widely?
A core Valuation interview question — asked in analyst and associate interviews across IB, PE, and the Big 4.
THE SHORT ANSWER
A football field shows the valuation range from each method — trading comps, transaction comps, DCF, LBO, 52-week range — as horizontal bars, letting the board see where methods overlap. I'd lead with the overlap zone as the defensible range, then explain the outliers rather than hide them: e.g., transaction comps sit high because they include control premiums; the DCF is wide because it's assumption-sensitive; the LBO marks the financial-buyer floor. The point isn't to average the methods — averaging masks information — but to triangulate, weight by reliability for this specific company, and tell the story of why they differ. A board wants the judgement: which range you'd actually stand behind and why.
WHAT INTERVIEWERS LISTEN FOR
- ✓Bars per method; highlight the overlap zone
- ✓Explain outliers (control premium, assumption sensitivity, LBO floor)
- ✓Triangulate and weight by reliability, don't average
- ✓Give a defensible recommended range with rationale
COMMON MISTAKES
- ✗Averaging all methods to one number
- ✗Hiding methods that disagree
- ✗No view on which range to trust
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